Kate Farrish

A psychiatric nurse from Durham who lost a $4.2 million malpractice decision in 2016 in connection with her care of a patient who committed suicide was reprimanded Wednesday by the state Board of Examiners for Nursing. The board also placed the advanced practice registered nurse license of Catherine Florio, who treated the patient in 2009 at Harbor Health Services in Branford, on probation for six months, during which she must complete courses on the management of patients with depression or anxiety or who are considering suicide, according to a consent order Florio agreed to with the board. Florio must also complete a course on managing patients who are withdrawing from benzodiazepines, a class of drugs used to treat anxiety. In 2016, a New Haven Superior Court jury found Florio 35 percent responsible for the death of Alan Jarecki, a 55-year-old house painter from Madison who was admitted to Yale New Haven Hospital because he was considering suicide, the Connecticut Law Tribune reported. The jury found the hospital 65 percent liable for the death, but the hospital had previously settled the lawsuit with Jarecki’s family, the Law Tribune reported.

The state Board of Examiners for Nursing has suspended the licenses of two nurses and revoked the licenses of two others. Meeting July 18 in Hartford, the board revoked the licensed practical nurse license of Frances Pisaturo of East Haven. It had suspended her license in November, saying that while working at PSA Healthcare in Stratford this year, she used marijuana to excess and posed a danger to the public, state records show. The charges were deemed admitted at a hearing in April because Pisaturo did not attend it, records show. The board also revoked the LPN license of Shannon Eustace of Wolcott, who state records show was accused of using alcohol, cocaine and Ativan to excess in 2017 and having an emotional disorder or mental illness that affects her ability to practice safely.

The Board of Examiners for Nursing on Wednesday disciplined five nurses while dropping the charges against an Ansonia nurse because he is now serving 60 years in prison for an unrelated felony murder. The charges were dropped against Jermaine V. Richards, a former licensed practical nurse from Ansonia, because he was convicted in March of the felony murder of his ex-girlfriend, an Eastern Connecticut State University student, in 2013. Since Richards’ nursing license lapsed in 2016 and is now serving a long sentence for murdering Alyssiah Wiley, 20, of West Haven, the prosecution of administrative charges against him is unnecessary, an attorney for the state Department of Public Health told the board. In charges unrelated to the murder, Richards had been accused of being involved in a fight with a visitor in the home of one of his patients. In June 2017, the board revoked his nursing license because of the fight and after concluding that he slept while on duty at a patient’s home, but a month later, the board vacated the revocation because Richards had asked for a continuance.

The state Board of Examiners for Nursing on Wednesday disciplined five nurses, including three advanced practice registered nurses for inappropriately prescribing drugs to family members. The board reprimanded the license of Joan Landino, an APRN from Wallingford, because in 2015, she inappropriately prescribed a controlled substance to a family member without documenting a medical evaluation of the person, a consent order she agreed to said. In 2016, she also failed to secure her prescription pad and inappropriately prescribed stimulants and benzodiazepines, a category of drugs that includes Valium, to patients, the order said. She also prescribed controlled substances to patients without documenting a justification for the prescriptions, the order states. Landino’s license will be on probation until she completes courses in prescribing practices and documentation standards, and she is restricted from prescribing any medication for herself, family members or friends except in an emergency, the order states.

The state Medical Examining Board on Tuesday disciplined three medical practitioners, including fining a New London urologist $3,500 for inappropriate treatment of a patient’s bladder tumor. The urologist, Dr. Anthony Quinn, was also reprimanded for failing to promptly respond to the same patient’s lab result, a consent order he agreed to said. The board also placed his medical license on probation for one year. During that year, Quinn must hire a specialist to review his records for each of his patients with diagnoses of bladder tumors or bladder cancer, the order said. The state Department of Public Health’s (DPH) investigation began in 2012 when the patient complained that she had to undergo the complete removal of her bladder by another surgeon after Quinn cared for her, state records show.

A former head nurse at York Correctional Institution has been reprimanded by the state Board of Examiners for Nursing for failing to properly care for an inmate who suffered a serious brain injury while in the prison medical unit in 2014. In the Niantic prison case, the board Wednesday also placed the registered nurse license of Mary Howe of Griswold on probation for three years and barred her from working in a clinical care setting for the first two years of the probation, a consent order she signed with the board said. Howe was also ordered to take courses in ethics, delegation of nursing duties, professional nursing standards, documentation and “empathy and compassion in nursing,” the order said. In signing the order, Howe did not contest the allegations against her but admitted no wrongdoing. In May 2017, a UConn Health spokesman said Howe no longer worked for the UConn Health unit that provided medical care in the prison.

The state Medical Examining Board on Tuesday disciplined three doctors, including fining a Newtown psychiatrist $15,000 for submitting false insurance claims.

In 2016, the doctor, Naimetulla Syed, paid $422,641 to resolve allegations that he submitted false claims to Medicare and Medicaid between 2009 and 2013, state and federal officials said in a news release at the time. An investigation revealed that he used a code for psychotherapy sessions lasting 45 to 50 minutes when in most cases, he only saw the patients for five to 30 minutes, the release said. The medical board also placed Syed’s medical license on probation for a year in connection with the false claims. Syed, who also has an office in Glastonbury, must complete courses in medical documentation. The state Department of Social Services had audited 100 of Syed’s patient charts and found that each chart lacked a treatment plan, according to a consent order cover sheet. Of those, 65 charts lacked basic patient demographic information and Syed’s signature.

The state Medical Examining Board Tuesday disciplined four doctors, including fining a Hamden doctor $3,500 for allowing medical assistants to give patients medication, including a nasal anesthetic. The board also reprimanded the physician, Craig Hecht, an ear, nose and throat doctor, after the state Department of Public Health found he failed to maintain appropriate infection controls in his Madison office, a consent order he signed with the board said. The order said he kept expired medications, failed to follow proper sterilization procedures and failed to keep appropriate sterilization records. Hecht also has offices in Hamden and Milford, but the problems were confined to his Madison office, the order said. Hecht chose not to contest the allegations while admitting no wrongdoing.

The Board of Examiners for Nursing has disciplined five nurses, including a Manchester nurse, in connection with lapses in care of a patient in Massachusetts who died. On Feb. 21, the Connecticut board reprimanded Elinor Riberio, a licensed practical nurse from Manchester, and placed her license on probation for one year in connection with the Massachusetts case. In June 2017, the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Nursing placed Riberio’s license on probation for six months after she admitted she failed to properly care for a patient at the Heritage Hall West nursing home in Agawam, Massachusetts records from that state show. Riberio failed to monitor the patient’s respiratory status and vital signs, left the unit even though she was the only nurse working there, failed to perform chest compressions when she found the patient in cardiopulmonary arrest and failed to properly operate defibrillator and suction machines, her signed consent order with the Connecticut board said.

Out of work and addicted to the anti-anxiety medication Klonopin, Heather Delaney, a licensed practical nurse from Stratford, checked herself into Bridgeport Hospital in 2011 when she could no longer handle withdrawal without medical help. After a brief hospitalization following a suicide attempt the previous fall, Delaney spent two horrific months on her own in the throes of withdrawal. The corners of her eyes felt “chapped,” and “it felt like somebody had wrapped me up in a scratchy blanket of needles,” said Delaney, who had given up her nursing license after being caught altering her Klonopin prescription. Sara Kaiser, an LPN living in Manchester, stole morphine from the nursing homes where she worked and was addicted to heroin from age 18 to 24. She spent time homeless and in prison, ultimately going through 14 rehab programs before getting sober in 2010.

About Connecticut Health I-Team

The non-profit Connecticut Health Investigative Team is dedicated to producing original, responsible, in-depth journalism on issues of health and safety. Learn More »

Take C-HIT’s Health Costs Survey

Are out-of-pocket health care costs draining your wallet? C-HIT wants to hear from you! We are gathering information for an upcoming story on consumers' health care costs. Click here to take the survey.

A new federal law will allow hundreds of Connecticut veterans with “bad paper” discharges to be eligible for long-term mental health care for the first time, and thus reduce their suicide risk. (more…)

Four nurses, all of them affiliated with a Derby pain clinic, were responsible for nearly all of the state’s 2014 Medicare spending on the powerful opioid painkiller Subsys, which is at the center of a kickback probe.